cha5otic

[cha5otic]

Today seems like a good day to ramble about my favorite bit of imagery in all of Bionicle, and that would be the twin eclipse in Legends of Metru Nui.

To start, let's recap a bit. Our protagonists, the Matoran and friends, live on a tropical island. The deity they worship is the Great Spirit Mata Nui, a vague, godlike figure cast into unending slumber by his jealous brother. We never see this entity, although he is often represented with symbols like the Kanohi Hau or a rock with etched details representing an abstraction of that mask. Similarly, we never see him do anything, as he is sleeping. All we know is that the village elders say he was benevolent and good.

The first major plot twist in Bionicle comes when the Matoran travel underground and find their original home: a large cavernous dome with an island city surrounded by a vast silver sea. Despite being underground, twin suns are visible in the sky, frozen in a partial eclipse.

The next year of Bionicle is a flashback, taking place on this island city while Mata Nui is awake and the suns are shining bright. Mata Nui himself and his actions are still seemingly nowhere to be seen.

Tragedy strikes at the end of the year when Mata Nui's jealous brother infects him with a virus and sends him into his slumber while the twin suns eclipse. With the limited information about the true nature of Mata Nui we had in 2004, this always seemed to be a rather on-the-nose metaphor. The Great Spirit who watches over the Matoran falls asleep and the suns overhead eclipse in a manner that makes them look like closing eyes. He can no longer protect the Matoran from the eternal shadow like he once did.

Fast forward four years and the big reveal that all of Bionicle had been building up to is finally made known. The Great Spirit Mata Nui was a metallic colossus in which the Matoran resided. The island city was his brain, the silver sea his cerebrospinal fluid, the dome his skull. The suns, as it so happens, actually are his eyes. But importantly, the eyes are not looking down on the Matoran - they are looking up, away from them.

Mata Nui, as it so happens, was rather unconcerned with the inner workings of his body. He wasn't malicious, but he cared about his people as much as you and i care about our sesamoid bones. Do you know how many you have and where? Probably not. His major character arc going forward is recognizing this and, after being humbled into a puny (7-foot-tall) humanoid, learning to care and respect other beings, even those he would usually consider beneath him.

The reason I love this shot so much is that it works perfectly for both views of Mata Nui: the Matoran interpretation of an idyllic protector who banishes shadows from his place in the heavens, and the giant robot with people in his brain who is preoccupied with observing space. The perception of this scene changes as our understanding of both the biology and personality of Mata Nui are revealed throughout the story.

Like, they made a movie for a toy with this shot that you would have to go back and watch four years later to fully appreciate. And IDK, I think it's pretty cool.

#bionicle #bionicle lore #mata nui

[cha5otic]

What was Teridax’s Damage?

So, I saw this post about Miserix’s characterisation earlier and it got me thinking.

I want to say that first off, I do not like the idea that all of the Makuta were just made to be evil, that they popped out of the antidermis already predisposed to be power-hungry bastards. That Miserix apparently only didn’t try to take over the universe because he had power, and considered aiming for more to be too risky to himself, is boring.

Shit like this is why I maintain that Bionicle is a much better story if you never read Greg’s forum posts and just make your own inferences based on what’s actually in the text.

Still, the notion of the ‘curse’ and some other Greg Canon got me thinking about how they intersect, and I landed more or less at this.

Keep reading

#bionicle #bionicle lore #mata nui #brotherhood of makuta #makuta teridax

[cha5otic]

What was Teridax’s Damage?

So, I saw this post about Miserix’s characterisation earlier and it got me thinking.

I want to say that first off, I do not like the idea that all of the Makuta were just made to be evil, that they popped out of the antidermis already predisposed to be power-hungry bastards. That Miserix apparently only didn’t try to take over the universe because he had power, and considered aiming for more to be too risky to himself, is boring.

Shit like this is why I maintain that Bionicle is a much better story if you never read Greg’s forum posts and just make your own inferences based on what’s actually in the text.

Still, the notion of the ‘curse’ and some other Greg Canon got me thinking about how they intersect, and I landed more or less at this.

Keep reading

#bionicle #bionicle lore #mata nui #brotherhood of makuta #makuta teridax

[cha5otic]

where is any higher quality version of this image

#nature #mammal #rats

[cha5otic]

Happened to me

Had a dream there was this Hero Factory theme park attraction thing where you would go into this chamber and get turned into one of the heroes. You would go beat up villains with your team, kinda like an irl version of the brain attack game. There was also extensive customization options with a good load of bionicle stuff, but I couldn't get it to work. My teammates used it to turn into their fursonas.

[cha5otic]

Don't worry about it

Slowly but surely building out my full Order of Mata Nui collection.

My remaining checklist is as follows:

1. Get the remaining pieces for Tobduk

2. Get the remaining pieces for Krakua

3. Think about how only Johmak specifically is entirely absent

4. Cry

5. Take solace in the fact that I already own Jerbraz

#bionicle #order of mata nui

[cha5otic]

[cha5otic]

Chronicler's Company but they're Toa!

These designs are meant to be, like, a "what if", where they became Toa some time after the Bohrok invasion but before the Rebuilding. Also I decided to take this seriously and not make Hafu and Taipu identical, though I did give them designs that could arguable work for either (and swapped their Toa forms' masks for fun).

(A live-updating list of stuff I use can be found here, feel free to suggest anything not on that list via my askbox.)

#bionicle #bionicle moc #chroniclers company

[cha5otic]

The Turaga Nuva

I had some trouble with this render because

A. I tried to let it render overnight and didnt realize that putting my computer in sleep mode would stop the rendwr

B. I almost got it rendered but then the computer forgot the external drive existed and the final image disappeared into the ether

But i fixed the second issue so we're ballin

#bionicle #bionicle moc #turaga #toa nuva

[cha5otic]

Yeeeees

Voyatoran Pokama (Stone) (he/him), Yanu (Psionics) (she/her), Bahu (Gravity) (he/him), and Tearu (Air) (they/her)

#bionicle #bionicle moc #matoran

[cha5otic]

I forgot I have to be active here so here’s my Twitter tutorial on how to draw folds I made a while back to help a friend!

#rbing for knowledge #digital art #art tips

[cha5otic]

DEAR ARTISTS, PLEASE READ THIS POST I STUMBLED ACROSS

IF YOU ARE NOT DOING THIS ALREADY, YOU SHOULD TRY IT

I even tested it out myself, it works great

#rbing for knowledge #digital art #art tips

[cha5otic]

My Favorite Cheap Art Trick: Gradient Maps and Blending Modes

i get questions on occasion regarding my coloring process, so i thought i would do a bit of a write up on my "secret technique." i don't think it really is that much of a secret, but i hope it can be helpful to someone. to that end:

this is one of my favorite tags ive ever gotten on my art. i think of it often. the pieces in question are all monochrome - sort of.

the left version is the final version, the right version is technically the original. in the final version, to me, the blues are pretty stark, while the greens and magentas are less so. there is some color theory thing going on here that i dont have a good cerebral understanding of and i wont pretend otherwise. i think i watched a youtube video on it once but it went in one ear and out the other. i just pick whatever colors look nicest based on whatever vibe im going for.

this one is more subtle, i think. can you tell the difference? there's nothing wrong with 100% greyscale art, but i like the depth that adding just a hint of color can bring.

i'll note that the examples i'll be using in this post all began as purely greyscale, but this is a process i use for just about every piece of art i make, including the full color ones. i'll use the recent mithrun art i made to demonstrate. additionally, i use clip studio paint, but the general concept should be transferable to other art programs.

for fun let's just start with Making The Picture. i've been thinking of making this writeup for a while and had it in mind while drawing this piece. beyond that, i didn't really have much of a plan for this outside of "mithrun looks down and hair goes woosh." i also really like all of the vertical lines in the canary uniform so i wanted to include those too but like. gone a little hog wild. that is the extent of my "concept." i do not remember why i had the thought of integrating a shattered mirror type of theme. i think i wanted to distract a bit from the awkward pose and cover it up some LOL but anyway. this lack of planning or thought will come into play later.

note 1: the textured marker brush i specifically use is the "bordered light marker" from daub. it is one of my favorite brushes in the history of forever and the daub mega brush pack is one of the best purchases ive ever made. highly recommend!!!

note 2: "what do you mean by exclusion and difference?" they are layer blending modes and not important to the overall lesson of this post but for transparency i wanted to say how i got these "effects." anyway!

with the background figured out, this is the point at which i generally merge all of my layers, duplicate said merged layer, and Then i begin experimenting with gradient maps. what are gradient maps?

the basic gist is that gradient maps replace the colors of an image based on their value.

so, with this particular gradient map, black will be replaced with that orangey red tone, white will be replaced with the seafoamy green tone, etc. this particular gradient map i'm using as an example is very bright and saturated, but the colors can be literally anything.

these two sets are the ones i use most. they can be downloaded for free here and here if you have csp. there are many gradient map sets out there. and you can make your own!

you can apply a gradient map directly onto a specific layer in csp by going to edit>tonal correction>gradient map. to apply one indirectly, you can use a correction layer through layer>new correction layer>gradient map. honestly, correction layers are probably the better way to go, because you can adjust your gradient map whenever you want after creating the layer, whereas if you directly apply a gradient map to a layer thats like. it. it's done. if you want to make changes to the applied gradient map, you have to undo it and then reapply it. i don't use correction layers because i am old and stuck in my ways, but it's good to know what your options are.

this is what a correction layer looks like. it sits on top and applies the gradient map to the layers underneath it, so you can also change the layers beneath however and whenever you want. you can adjust the gradient map by double clicking the layer. there are also correction layers for tone curves, brightness/contrast, etc. many such useful things in this program.

let's see how mithrun looks when we apply that first gradient map we looked at.

gadzooks. apologies for eyestrain. we have turned mithrun into a neon hellscape, which might work for some pieces, but not this one. we can fix that by changing the layer blending mode, aka this laundry list of words:

some of them are self explanatory, like darken and lighten, while some of them i genuinely don't understand how they are meant to work and couldn't explain them to you, even if i do use them. i'm sure someone out there has written out an explanation for each and every one of them, but i've learned primarily by clicking on them to see what they do.

for the topic of this post, the blending mode of interest is soft light. so let's take hotline miamithrun and change the layer blending mode to soft light.

here it is at 100% opacity. this is the point at which i'd like to explain why i like using textured brushes so much - it makes it very easy to get subtle color variation when i use this Secret Technique. look at the striation in the upper right background! so tasty. however, to me, these colors are still a bit "much." so let's lower the opacity.

i think thats a lot nicer to look at, personally, but i dont really like these colors together. how about we try some other ones?

i like both of these a lot more. the palettes give the piece different vibes, at which point i have to ask myself: What Are The Vibes, Actually? well, to be honest i didn't really have a great answer because again, i didn't plan this out very much at all. however. i knew in my heart that there was too much color contrast going on and it was detracting from the two other contrasts in here: the light and dark values and the sharp and soft shapes. i wanted mithrun's head to be the main focal point. for a different illustration, colors like this might work great, but this is not that hypothetical illustration, so let's bring the opacity down again.

yippee!! that's getting closer to what my heart wants. for fun, let's see what this looks like if we change the blending mode to color.

i do like how these look but in the end they do not align with my heart. oh well. fun to experiment with though! good to keep in mind for a different piece, maybe! i often change blending modes just to see what happens, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. i very much cannot stress enough that much of my artistic process is clicking buttons i only sort of understand. for fun.

i ended up choosing the gradient map on the right because i liked that it was close to the actual canary uniform colors (sorta). it's at an even lower opacity though because there was Still too much color for my dear heart.

the actual process for this looks like me setting my merged layer to soft light at around 20% opacity and then clicking every single gradient map in my collection and seeing which one Works. sometimes i will do this multiple times and have multiple soft light and/or color layers combined.

typically at this point i merge everything again and do minor contrast adjustments using tone curves, which is another tool i find very fun to play around with. then for this piece in particular i did some finishing touches and decided that the white border was distracting so i cropped it. and then it's done!!! yay!!!!!

this process is a very simple and "fast" way to add more depth and visual interest to a piece without being overbearing. well, it's fast if you aren't indecisive like me, or if you are better at planning.

let's do another comparison. personally i feel that the hint of color on the left version makes mithrun look just a bit more unwell (this is a positive thing) and it makes the contrast on his arm a lot more pleasing to look at. someone who understands color theory better than i do might have more to say on the specifics, but that's honestly all i got.

just dont look at my layers too hard. ok?

#rbing for knowledge #digital art #art tips

[cha5otic]

"oh it's a sin against the cosmos to use nuclear energy" how can you say that when the first thing the deity did to humanity was split the adam

[cha5otic]

"Oh man, I worked hard on my mindless slave"

I like to think that in the universe where our fandom is much larger , this paragraph has inspired thousands of fanfics. about the tragic romance of two evil mutant crustacean men.

#bionicle #bionicle lore #barraki

[cha5otic]

Speeda Demon Revamp

happy april 1st lol

#hero factory #lego moc #ccbs #speeda demon #preston stormer

[cha5otic]